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Groton Daily Independent
Tuesday, March 06, 2018 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 235 ~ 19 of 35
bene ts of the president’s sweeping tax overhaul.
Likewise, the statement from Ryan’s of ce said, “The new tax reform law has boosted the economy, and
we certainly don’t want to jeopardize those gains.”
Asked about that public rebuke, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “Look, we
have a great relationship with Speaker Ryan. We’re going to continue to have one, but that doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything.”
Canada is the United States’ No. 1 foreign supplier of both steel and aluminum. Mexico is the No. 4 sup- plier of steel and No. 7 for aluminum.
Congressional Republicans say any tariffs should be narrow in scope, and they privately warned that Trump’s effort could hurt the party’s hopes to preserve its majority in the fall elections.
As the president dug in on his position, any potential compromise with foreign trading partners and Republican lawmakers was expected to still include some form of tariffs.
“Trump is not someone who retreats,” said Stephen Moore, an economist with the conservative Heritage Foundation and a former campaign adviser. “He’s going to need to be able to declare some victory here.”
The tariffs will be made of cial in the next two weeks, White House of cials said.
“Twenty- ve percent on steel, and the 10 percent on aluminum, no country exclusions — rm line in the sand,” said Navarro, speaking on “Fox and Friends.”
Republican critics on Capitol Hill and within the administration argue that industries and their workers that rely on steel and aluminum for their products will suffer. The cost of new appliances, cars and build- ings will rise for Americans if the president follows through, they warn, and other nations could retaliate.
Two dozen conservative groups, including the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks and the National Taxpayers Union, urged Trump to reconsider, writing in a letter that the tariffs would be “a tax on the middle class with everything from cars to baseball bats to even beer.”
The Trade Partnership, a consulting rm, said the tariffs would increase U.S. employment in the steel and aluminum sector by about 33,000 jobs but would cost 179,000 jobs in the rest of the economy.
The end result could erode the president’s base of support with rural America and even the blue-collar workers the president says he’s trying to help.
“These are people that voted for him and supported him in these auto-producing states,” said Cody Lusk, president of the American International Automobile Dealers Association. Lusk noted that of the 16 states with auto plants, Trump won all but two.
The administration has argued the tariffs are necessary to preserve the American aluminum and steel industries and protect national security. But Trump’s comments and tweets early Monday suggested he was also using them as leverage in the current talks to revise NAFTA. The latest round of a nearly yearlong renegotiation effort is concluding this week in Mexico City.
At those talks, U.S Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Monday that progress has been less than many had hoped and “our time is running short.”
“I fear the longer we proceed, the more political headwinds we will feel,” he said. And he added that if three-way negotiations don’t work, “we are prepared to move on a bilateral basis.”
More upbeat about progress until now, Dan Ujczo, a trade attorney with Dickinson Wright PLLC in Colum- bus, Ohio, said, “We were moving toward the nish line in NAFTA.” But he added, “This has the potential to throw the NAFTA talks off track.”
He said neither Canada nor Mexico will want to be seen as giving in to U.S. pressure. Indeed, he said, Canada is probably already drawing up lists of U.S. products to tax in retaliation.
Separately, Mexican Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo tweeted: “Mexico shouldn’t be included in steel & aluminum tariffs. It’s the wrong way to incentivize the creation of a new & modern #NAFTA.”
The president opened the door to exempting Canada and Mexico from the tariffs, saying, “That would be, I would imagine, one of the points that we’ll negotiate.” But he added, “If they aren’t going to make a fair NAFTA deal, we’re just going to leave it this way.”
Trump has long threatened to pull out of the 24-year-old trade pact if it can’t be overhauled and encour- age manufacturers to bring factory jobs back the United States.